This post was written by long-time BCC friend and bloggernacle participant Theric.

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Mother’s Day is fraught. Just make a search right here at BCC and see. And it’s been rough for a long, long time. As part of my current calling, I’ve been in charge of planning sacrament meeting on Mother’s Day since 2014. I relished the opportunity. To me, Mother’s Day is an obvious opportunity to celebrate one of the most unique (for now) Mormon doctrines: our Mother in heaven. My thought was we start with women in the scriptures and, by year three, we straight-out do Heavenly Mother. It hasn’t quite worked that way. [Read more…]

Bike to Church Month continues here at By Common Consent blog. This week we feature the completely car-free Farley family of Oakland, CA, @maryaagard of Boise, ID rocking her Mother’s Day corsage, and BCC’s own Sam Brunson of Chicago, IL. Keep biking to church all month long in May (and beyond!), and send us your pics on Twitter @bycommonconsent #BikeToChurch, Instagram (I’m sisterblah2), or email sisterblah2@gmail.com.

May is Bike to Church Month at By Common Consent, and Mother’s Day is no exception. Ride your bike to church this month and share your pics with us! Today we feature Kari Waters from Syracuse, NY, very on point for Mother’s Day rocking the toddler in rear seat! [Read more…]

I had assumed that Mother’s Day was a greeting card holiday invented by Hallmark to turn filial guilt into revenue. I was surprised to discover that Mother’s Day has a history longer than Christianity! Ancients celebrated Isis (Mother of the Pharaohs), Rhea (Greek Mother of the Gods), and Cybele (The Great Mother). The worship of these ancient goddesses is similar to the reverence we show to Mary, Jesus’s mother as these Mother Goddesses are often depicted with a baby in arms. They also represent the reverence we should feel toward our own Heavenly Mother, symbolizing the care the earth provides to us all physically and the divine protection we receive. [Read more…]

No, not a Mother’s Day post. Just some thinking out loud here. Ignore without peril.

Preaching in America during the long eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and more especially the antebellum period, makes a fascinating study (says I). Gauging the impact of those sermons among listeners and downstream is especially interesting. However, doing that can be challenging and requires considerable detective work especially in considering immediate impact. Ideally, there would be surveys to consult, reported interviews with listeners and so on. But those instruments were not really known in the sense that we use them today. There are a few items that can give us a peek at what people thought about their preachers. However, with one or two exceptions, these are not massive contemporary collections of data. Instead, we have personal accounts in diaries, memoirs, and the like. Pursuing such things for the occasional brief comment on one or another preacher can consume years and those discoveries rarely cluster around one particular minister. Given all the surviving texts of early American sermons it is rather startling how little we know about how they were received.[1][Read more…]

Not everyone can give this talk–among other things, not many people can get away with a Larry Summers joke–but I think it is a wonderful example of a talk that is about Jesus and mothers, in their proper order. (And about Indonesian cross-dressing beauty queens…)

I am confident that a poll of active Mormons would show that Mother’s Day sacrament meeting is, hands down, the one meeting of the year most fraught with difficulty for the people who attend. I have seen women leave the meeting in tears, and I know others who have learned, through sad experience, that it is best for them to take a break from church on Mother’s Day. I wonder if this phenomenon is uniquely Mormon. Do other Christian women struggle with church-going on this day? If it is unique to us, I wonder why we have a corner on the Mother’s Day anxiety market.

Over the years, I’ve heard some very good Mother’s Day talks, but I have also heard some that were cringe-worthy. I’ve decided to see if I can discern consistent reasons why the good ones are good and the bad ones are terrible. This blog post is the result of my musing. Keep in mind, this is from a male perspective, and my opinions might be worth exactly what you paid for them. Please use the comments to make your own contributions.[Read more…]

I grew up in Northern Florida, which is effectively Southern Georgia. In other words, I am Southern in the cultural sense, not just the geographical one. It is not the easiest thing to be Mormon in the South. [Read more…]

As I’ve written about before, children did not come easily to our family. During those struggles, Mother’s Days at church were excruciating. Even after becoming the mother of two, I still struggle with Mother’s Day-–the sense of inadequacy as people wax poetic about their Supermoms, the echoes of painful Mother’s Days past. I’m happy to report that those echos are fading, and each year I better appreciate the beauty of a day when we celebrate the very real sacrifices of the mothers of every one of the 6 billion people on this planet, of mothers of past generations, and our Heavenly Mother.

Still, I have immense empathy for Mother’s Day angst. While (barely) enduring a Mother’s Day Sacrament Meeting during the infertile period, I fantasized about the talk I would have given if I’d been asked, an antidote to the typical Mother’s Day talk.[Read more…]

I have been asked to speak in Sacrament meeting on Mother’s Day. I figured I’d avoid that particular invitation for life. It’s on my list of nightmares. This is how the person conducting the meeting introduces me in my nightmare: “Well, brothers and sisters, we usually have our ideal mothers tell us about the joys of keeping their husbands’ shirts neatly pressed, or the wonders of scrapbooking, all about their missionary children, and every splendid thing an outstanding mother can share. [Read more…]

My bishop asked me to give a Mother’s Day talk in sacrament meeting in May. I spent five or six hours writing it out so that I could deliver it within the fifteen minutes suggested by the bishop. However, I didn’t get to give it because the speakers before me on the program used up all the time.

Before the meeting began, I told the bishop that it was likely a mistake on his part to ask me to give a talk. He said no, it wasn’t a mistake. When the meeting was over, I told him, “There, you see it was a mistake. The Almighty countermanded you.”

Lesson Objective: To understand the Judges pride cycle, and celebrate the leadership of righteous women.

Introduction: This lesson attempts to grapple with a lot of material — the entire Book of Judges. Judges is a mish-mash of Biblical stories, told in dramatic narrative but not necessarily chronological order, falling between the eras of Joshua and Solomon. [Read more…]

Learning Outcomes

Have class members learn and discuss how our doctrine uniquely celebrates the beauty of God’s creation of both the Earth and of all humankind, particularly the gift of our physical bodies. Note: There is likely more material here than can be covered in a single period, use your best judgment to encourage faithful discussion on the topics most relevant to your class.

Readings

Introduction

Back in college, I took several semester-long courses on early Christianity, including one dedicated exclusively to early Christian heresies. Of these, there was one belief, popular among early Gnostics, that truly shocked me. Namely: Creation was a great mistake. All physical matter is imbued with evil. Our goal as Christians is to transcend the evil corruption of earthly mortalityand enter a pure spiritual state.That seemed fundamentally contrary to everything I had learned about the Creation and Plan of Salvation as a Mormon youth. [Read more…]

This talk was given in sacrament meeting in the Battlecreek 9th Ward in Pleasant Grove on the subject of Gratitude.

My Mother died on July, 13th of this year.

One late afternoon about a month later, on August 20th, 2017 to be exact, my friend Steve and his wife Jill, pick me up along with my adult son Jaron to chase the total eclipse tacking across the United States the next day. We all know it may be a once in a lifetime event, but none of us are that excited. We’ve been to several partial eclipses, and while amazing, this more-of-the-same-except-even-more seems like a lot of work at a busy time. School is starting. I’ve got loads of projects and deadlines screaming at me. I keep asking myself why are we doing this? Time with one of my sons and good conversations with friends is really the only thing that doesn’t keep me from canceling.[Read more…]

Several years ago, I was visiting my mother’s home ward in my hometown in the South. My wife and I went to church with my mom and, as it was a fifth Sunday, all the adults in the ward (without a calling elsewhere) gathered together to watch a video. Normally, this just means that the bishopric hasn’t really had the time to put together a lesson (or call someone to do so). After all, we’ve all looked forward to Church videos when we haven’t gotten our Sunday School lesson together. However, this video wasn’t obviously by the church. I don’t recall the production company, but the content was disturbing.

The main point of video was that women don’t have enough babies. [Read more…]

You asked for it, and we heard you. At BCC Press, it’s just what what we do. As of today, Mother’s Milk, the remarkable book of poems about Heavenly Mother written by Rachel Hunt Steenblik and illustrated by Ashley Mae Hoiland, is available for the Kindle. And for the next four days, you can get it for $3.95, which, let’s face it, is the new free.

If you haven’t seen what people are already saying about Mother’s Milk, check out the buzz: [Read more…]

Rather, it has to do with the kind of creativity needed to break bad habits. Or the kind of creativity needed to breathe life back into broken relationships. Or the kind of creativity needed to unbalance cycles of anger and violence. Or the kind of creativity needed to see past prejudice. Or the kind of creativity needed to be something more—more kind, more attentive, more humble, more aware, more responsible—than I generally am.

Think about the last time you were angry with your wife or yelled at your son. How predictable was this anger? How automatic? How thoughtless? How uncreative?

Think about that moment, that gap, between what the other person did and how you, like a damn robot, responded. Think about how, in that moment, you might have done something just a little bit different, something that might have short-circuited your anger and changed the whole thing: how you might have used a different tone of voice, or met their eyes, or made the bed, or held your head at a different angle, or surrendered the point, or noticed the light coming through the window, or smiled, or laughed, or wept. [Read more…]

We are over halfway through the season of Lent, and today, Mothering Sunday, is named after a 16th-century tradition of attending the church you grew up in, the place where you were baptized, or the church your mother attends. “Going a-mothering” meant traveling to your home church, the place where you came from.

A common argument about why we don’t speak more about Heavenly Mother or actively seek a relationship with Her is because we just don’t have a lot of documentation about Her. She doesn’t show up in LDS canonized scripture, and we only have secondhand accounts of Joseph Smith teaching of Her existence.

However, the “Mother in Heaven” essay published by the church last week seems to suggest that in spite of our ignorance, Heavenly Mother plays an important role in the mortal lives of both men and women. The essay cites President Harold B. Lee when he argued, “we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother who are even more concerned, probably, than our earthly father and mother, and that influences from beyond are constantly working to try to help us.” Furthermore, the essay quotes Elder Rudger Clawson saying, “We honor woman when we acknowledge Godhood in her eternal Prototype,” suggesting that we know at least enough about Heavenly Mother to acknowledge Her. [Read more…]

Part of the punitive appeal of crucifixion lies in the fact of public display: nothing says “remember who’s in charge” quite like a bunch of corpse-bedecked crosses outside the city gates. So, too, with Jesus, crucified as a troublemaker alongside two thieves and atop a hill, such that the scene might be visible from a distance. The message from the Romans: “We will not tolerate that business about destroying the temple and raising it up in three days, no sir, so don’t even think about it.” [Read more…]

DAY 2, people! Or maybe Day 3? By President Uchtdorf’s reckoning, we’re heading into the fifth session of this General Conference. Happy Sunday morning.

Steve left a comment on WVS’s lovely post a few days ago that rang true: “I wonder if Conference hasn’t lost some of its power because of the ease for watching.”

With that in mind, if you’re sitting on a comfy sectional, or reclined in an easy chair, or propped up with pillows behind you and waffles in front of you, join us in making this session a “lean-forward” one. Take some notes. Share your thoughts out loud with those around you. Tweet. Leave comments here (though take note: we’re modding with a heavy hand this weekend, as you might have noticed yesterday. More on that here.)

As a seven year old, I had a fascination with monster/horror/space films. When my parents weren’t looking, I would leaf through the newspaper to find the page where the theaters advertised their current wares. Inevitably, there were some wonderfully creepy black and white ads leaking out of the bottom of the page: “Blood Monster from Hell” or “The Blob,” or some such. Stuff they never discussed in Primary. When my mother was out of earshot, I’d mention these to my dad, who, knowing better, shared a bit of this interest, or at least he pretended to share it. My mother was one of those practical people who never opened the door to the night.[Read more…]

Nicolas Kristof has done us a great service in bringing to the nation’s (and world’s) attention the depraved and cowardly kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian girls by the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram. Boko Haram means “Western education is a sin” in the Hausa language. All that “secular” learning. Boko Haram would rather conflate religion and the state, ensuring that women have no voice in society, confined to whatever influence their husbands allow them in their homes in the forced marriages into which they are sold in their early or mid-teens. [Read more…]

The Collect: O God, who by the suffering of thy Son madest us a refuge in our suffering, grant that we, in our own fateful hours, might trust in the foolishness of the cross; whose shame sealed the triumph of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever, amen.[Read more…]

The Collect: Father, grant us through thy mercy a renewed desire to search the scriptures and a new appreciation of the spirit of prophecy, that our faith may be strengthened in this holy season! May our strengthened faith manifest itself in works that resonate with those who have gone astray, drawing them back into the fold, renewing their desire to seek the gifts of faith and repentance, that they might once again be sanctified by the Sacrament of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, who is one with Thee and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.[Read more…]

Much of the July 12 revelation is simplistically divisible into two kinds of speech: 1) Joseph is in the right. 2) Emma is in the wrong. The last section of the revelation falls into both categories. Along with this, we also get some talk of “virgins.” Earlier text in the revelation treats issues of sexual transgression (see part 8 for example).[Read more…]